


No One Here Who Knows Me

by branwyn



Series: The Last One [1]
Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, Suicide, a rabbit of melancholy disposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:32:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling's just like flying.</p><p> </p><p>For this prompt: http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/4207.html?thread=5392239&posted=1#cmt5525359</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Here Who Knows Me

"I don't like it," says the man who looks like Martin.

There's something strange about the way he says it, like he's baffled to find that the idea of another man dying in his place is distasteful to him. Nothing in his expression suggests that he feels anything as strong as compassion, but there's something almost childlike about his frown as he puzzles his way through the mystery of his own regret.

Martin's read the papers, of course. Sherlock Holmes, brilliant detective. Eccentric, hostile, cold. And now, supposedly, a fraud, although his brother, who's standing between them wearing a pinched look, had told Martin that it wasn't true. As if that mattered particularly to Martin.

"There is no other choice," says the brother--Mycroft, Martin recalls. "There are limits even to my powers of concealment and misdirection, Sherlock. If you are determined to go through with this--"

"I have to."

"Then stop arguing. We're wasting time."

A furrowed line appears between Sherlock's eyebrows. Martin finds it hard to look at him. He's never been fond of mirrors, and Sherlock is a mocking display of what Martin would look like if he were taller, richer, better dressed, and just slightly better looking in some indefinable way that somehow makes all the difference.

"Go away," Sherlock tells Mycroft. "We'll speak alone."

Martin almost says no. The decision had been a hard one to begin with--harder, really, than he would have thought, if he'd ever contemplated the prospect before. He doesn't especially want to give himself a chance to think it through.

But then he catches Sherlock's eye, and he sees again that hint of something very nearly vulnerable in his face. Mycroft had described to Martin, in brief, the nature of Sherlock's predicament: his few hard-won friends whose lives depends on this ruse. Martin and Sherlock have that in common, along with their face. 

"It's fine," he mutters, when Mycroft arches a questioning eyebrow. 

Sherlock looks him up and down as soon as they are alone.

"You're an airline captain," he says. "Small charter line, antiquated aircraft. You live alone, you have a side job doing some sort of manual labor, but neither job pays enough to keep you out of poverty. No wife, no girlfriend, no living family that you're close to. You have one or two friends, but they have no idea what's happening to you. You're doing this for them, Mycroft is going to assist them in return for your--" Sherlock pauses, swallows the word _cooperation_ , so clearly on the tip of his tongue. "In return for you dying in my place."

"Christ." Martin looks away. He'd heard, of course, what Sherlock Holmes was capable of, but he didn't expect it to feel like this--his whole life being reduced to a handful of pitiful facts. It makes him feel like he's already dead, listening to Sherlock deliver an incredibly brief and merciless eulogy.

"Why?" says Sherlock.

"What?" Martin blinks, hard.

"Why are you willing to do this?"

Martin shrugs. "You just said it. My friends are--" In prison, or at least Douglas is; he'd been arrested in Belarus a month ago, for smuggling, and not long afterwards he'd been beaten up by another inmate so badly he'd almost died. Gerti had been impounded, Carolyn had lost everything, right down to her house, and Arthur was simply…not Arthur anymore. 

Mycroft has promised to fix all of that. To more than fix it, to take care of all of them for the rest of their lives. And anyway, what's the alternative? To shift other people's furniture until he throws his back out permanently and has to go on the dole? Another twenty or thirty years of coming home at the end of the day to an empty flat, to beer and telly, to no friends, to watching an increasingly dim future become the incredibly bleak past?

Martin's no good at living in the world. Something about it never really clicked with him. He'd tasted a little of what having a real life could be like, when he was a captain, when his friends were around him. There's no real chance of ever having that again. He's almost forty now, just young enough not to have really done anything, just old enough to understand what he's lost, how hard it would be find it again. Douglas and Carolyn and Arthur, they're the only things in the world that still have any meaning to him. 

His life isn't such a big thing to give up, to make them happy again.

Martin doesn't know how much of all this Sherlock can tell just by looking at him. Probably more than Martin wants him to. But whatever he sees in Martin's face, he doesn't press him further. Something not unlike understanding dawns in his eyes. He gives Martin a wry smile.

"Caring," he says, "is not an advantage."

If Mycroft hadn't told him about Sherlock's friends, Martin would probably have punched him. As it is, he recognizes the irony of what Sherlock's saying.

"If it isn't better than not caring," he says, "what are either of us doing here?"

Sherlock shuts his eyes. Just for an instant. Then he opens them again.

"I am--" Sherlock swallows. "Grateful."

There's still something hesitant, something uncertain about the look he's giving Martin, and suddenly Martin feels like he can give this strange man a gift. He's about to die, and these are the last words he'll say, as himself. Last words are important. People remember them, even if they don't want to.

"It isn't only for them," he says. "If you were--if you weren't a good person, I wouldn't help you. Not even for what Mycroft offered me."

Martin's known Sherlock less than five minutes, but he already knows that the look of shock on his face must be a very rare sight. 

"The world needs more people like you," he finishes, feeling that it's a rather lame, cliched thing to say, but he has a strange instinct that it's something Sherlock needs to hear.

Sherlock blinks and looks away. They stand there, in the echoing silence of the morgue, and finally Sherlock shrugs out of his coat. He hands it to Martin.

"You'll need to wear this," he says. "You remember what to say?"

Martin nods.

"There will be a very narrow window between Moriarty's departure and John's arrival. I'll text you. Stay out of sight and move quickly when you get it."

Martin's fingers curl around the phone in his pocket. He nods again.

"Good luck," he tells Sherlock.

Sherlock turns and starts toward the door. Martin looks down at the steel table before him. His body will be lying there soon. Such a strange thought. The steel is cold, and it seems impossible that he won't be able to feel it, even when he's dead.

"It won't just be Mycroft," Sherlock says.

Martin looks up. Sherlock is standing by the door, looking at him over his shoulder.

"Mycroft's surveillance tends to have holes. He spends his days behind a desk. I'll keep an eye on them as well. Your friend Douglas, in particular, tends to cross the wrong people. I can deal with that better than my brother."

"Thank you," says Martin. He is genuinely grateful. Sherlock's promise brings to mind the image of Douglas, home and free and healthy enough to get into scrapes again. It's a good though. It makes Martin feel lighter.

Sherlock nods once, then pushes his way through the doors. They flap shut again, and Martin is alone.

*

It's cold on the roof. Martin knows all about crosswinds, so the strength of them doesn't come as a surprise, but he feels a momentary pang of regret that he never went hang gliding. So many different ways to fly, and up to now he's only tried one of them. 

Martin tosses the phone behind him. It's all he's carrying. His letters, for Douglas and Carolyn and Arthur, he left with Mycroft. Nothing else weighing him down now.

Martin steps onto the ledge. For the first and last time in his life, he spreads his wings. 

And for a moment, he soars.


End file.
